To A Young Mother On The Birth Of Her First-Born Child.

Young mother! proudly throbs thine heart, and well may it rejoice,     Well may'st thou raise to Heaven above in grateful prayer thy voice:     A gift hath been bestowed on thee, a gift of priceless worth,     Far dearer to thy woman's heart than all the wealth of earth.     What store of deep and holy joy is opened to thy thought -     Glad, sunny dreams of future days, with bliss and rapture fraught;     Of hopes as varied, yet as bright, as beams of April sun,     And plans and wishes centred all within thy darling one!     While others seek in changing scenes earth's happiness to gain,     In fashion's halls to win a joy as dazzling as 'tis vain -     A bliss more holy far is thine, far sweeter and more deep,     To watch beside thine infant's couch and bend above his sleep.     What joy for thee to ling'ring gaze within those cloudless eyes,     Turning upon thee with a glance of such sweet, strange surprise,     Or press a mother's loving kiss upon that fair, white brow,     Of all earth's weight of sin and care and pain unconscious now.     Then, as thy loved one's sleeping breath so softly fans thy cheek,     And gazing on that tiny form, so lovely, yet so weak,     A dream comes o'er thee of the time when nobly at thy side     Thy cherished son shall proudly stand, in manhood's lofty pride.     Yet a sad change steals slowly o'er thy tender, loving eye,     Thou twin'st him closer to thy heart, with fond and anxious sigh,     Feeling, however bright his course he too must suff'ring know,     Like all earth's children taste alike life's cup of care and woe.     But, oh! it lies within thy power to give to him a spell     To guard him in the darkest hour from sorrow safe and well;     Thou'lt find it in the narrow path the great and good have trod -     And thou thyself wilt teach it him - the knowledge of his God!